Monday, June 24, 2013

Wow! Samoans Love Food

 Doing laundry
MTC District
I'm so sad these sisters won't be in Seattle so I'll never get to serve with them. They're so great. 
 Airport

 The two trios from our zone in the MTC

 What the cake looked like after the car ride. 
 Me covered in frosting.
 I don't know if you can see how dirty my skirt is. 

What the cake now looks like.
Mission life is so good! The best! I love it so much. So much happiness. 


Talofa family!

How are all of you? I hope you get feeling better, Bruce. And Dad's knee too. I'm praying for all of you. I pray for you everyday. 

The book cover is so cute! Oh my goodness. I love it so much. I'm so excited for you. This will be so great. Can't wait to get home and have my own copy and reread it. I love it so much. 

Well, I've survived my first week in the Samoan ward. Well almost first week. I was told that Samoans love food, but wow, do they really love food. They feed us fafaga (dinner) every night. Also, who knew, but Samoans really love Chinese Buffets. They think they're incredible. So we go to Chinese Buffets quite often. And they watch you eat to make sure you're eating enough. They make you go back at least twice and then dessert. My companion, Sister McBride, said that one time she went to Chinese Buffets six nights in a row. Holy cow. That hasn't happened yet. Just two nights in a row so far. I haven't really eaten real Samoan food yet. Apparently I'm getting my first real Samoan food tonight with the Bishop's family. They just eat a lot of meat. 

The ward is really great. They're all really friendly and just laugh at me. But in the nicest possible way. haha. I'm the third sister missionary they've ever had and I'm replacing the one that was Samoan so it's a little interesting. Everyone's so nice but I have some big shoes to fill becuase everyone loved Sister Lotoa. I've learned some Samoan words and phrases. I just try and learn a few new words each day. I can say please, thank you, dinner, hungry, sleep, families are forever, yes, no, I am a daughter of God, the Book of Mormon, and a few other things. 

So far one of my favorite things about the ward--the children. Oh my goodness. They are so sweet. It's a little more relaxed in the Samoan ward so they'll come up and play with us and give us hugs and stuff. So cute. I love it so much. There's one little boy named Jackson who's probably 5 or 6. He is one of my favorites. I've seen him a couple times now and he always waves to me and talks to me. He's so great. 

It was interesting to be in Sacrament Meeting and not understand what was going on. One of the youth speakers gave their talk in English so that was nice and the other one gave his talk in half Samoan half English so I understood that part. The Bishop announced my name but I didn't know what was happening. Then I figured out that I was supposed to get up and bear my testimony. I started by saying talofa and Sister Ilaua (she's so sweet. I've met her a couple of times because of ward correlation and they fed us dinner) was so proud of me. I really like her. We went to Sunday School with our investigator, Siona, so it was in Samoan. It was really hard to stay awake. 

We have two investigators who are on date for baptism within the next week--Sina and Siona. Pray for them please. Siona just has to get married and then he should be good to go but he rescheduled our lesson for tomorrow so just really pray for him. Sina is so ready to be baptized. She's so sweet and she has an adorable little three year old girl. She just has to get permission from her husband but he's on the boat. I only semi-know what that means but apparently they go up to Alaska and they're gone for a couple months or something. Anyway, she still needs to ask him but it's hard to get in contact with him and she's worried he'll say no. We're going over there tonight and we're going to teach her about fasting and fast tomorrow but really pray for her.
Pray for new investigators too. We go off referrals and we've seriously contacted everyone in our area book. They're either not interested or never answer their door. Some of them we hear too. It's kind of funny when you walk up and hear people and the TV and then you knock and everything gets quiet. We've actually watched the blinds close at some places. Not very sneaky. But all we can do is keep going back. We're really going to push the ward for referrals but pray for us. I really want some new people to work with. Once Sina and Siona get baptized we won't have any progressing investigators. 

We had a neat experience. We were out tracting for training purposes since we don't really have much success tracting for Samoans. Anyway it was pretty late in the day on Saturday and we had had no success. No one was home or they didn't want to talk to us. It had just been a long day. It was President Larkin's last Saturday so the goal was to get as many people on date for baptism as possible. Apparently it works a little different in the Samoan ward because Saturdays are super successful for palagi areas but not for us. Anyway we get these voicemails called miracle blasts and all these people were talking about how they had just met someone who was so ready. It was so great! But anyway we had just visited a less active member and had about fifteen minutes left so we went to this apartment complex and Sister McBride told me to pick a door. We walked up to one and knocked and out comes this very large white man in short shorts and no shirt. It was pretty gross to be honest. But I tried to see him as God sees him. We told him we were missionaries and all that stuff. He was interested so he went back and got a shirt on (thank goodness!) and came out and spoke to us. We had a mini Restoration lesson and he was so great. He seemed so interested and willing to learn. We went over the second to last paragraph in the Introduction adn then read Moroni 10:3-5. We gave him a Book of Mormon and a Restoration pamphlet and he said he would read 3 Nephi 11. It was so great. We got his info to pass on to the misisonaries in his area. It was definitely a miracle from God. I wish we could work with him but that's ok. He was ready for the gospel. It was a great experience. 

Another cool thing happened yesterday. We were visiting one of our referrals and there was no parking anywhere in her complex so we had to park kind of far away. She didn't answer but on our way back we ran into a man named Daniel who took a Book of Mormon and wants to learn more. So we got his info to give to the missionaries in his area as well. It was so neat. We wouldn't have met him if we hadn't have had to park so far away. God really knows what He's doing. I'm so grateful for that. Being on a mission is the greatest! I love it so much. I'm so grateful I have this opportunity to serve. The gospel is so true and God loves all of us so much.

Funny story. On Friday the family that signed up for fafaga had a wedding reception so they invited us to come and eat there. We ended up being there for so long. Samoans never start on time. At least the Samoans I know so far don't. Anyway, the sister of the groom is from our ward so we didn't even know who the bride and groom were. There weren't very many people there so it was kind of awkward. Anyway they're cutting the cake. The wedding cake was about four or five separate cakes. After they cut the cake they gave one to the Bishop from their ward and then one to the bride's family and then one to the missionaries. Apparently everywhere we go we just become guests of honor or something. It felt so weird to walk out of someone's wedding who I didn't even know carrying one of their cakes.

I tried to get the elders to take it home but they said they would just stop by later and pick up their half. So I was left to hold the cake on my lap. We stopped by Sina's after the reception and when we got back to the car the top layer of the cake ahd cracked and started slipping off. It wasn't a huge deal though. I just had to squish it back on. My hands were covered in frosting at that point so we tried to wash it off in the parking lot with a water bottle. Then we turned back around to get the cake from the hood of the car and it had just slipped more. We once again tried to squish it back together but it didn't work so well. We got in the car and from there it just got worse. There was cake falling all over my lap and my hands up to my forearms were covered in frosting as I tried to hold the cake together. Sister McBride ended up driving with one hand so she could hold the part together that I couldn't reach. IT was seriously one of the funniest things ever! There's a cake trail from our car to our apartment. When I stood up from the car to get out so much cake fell to the parking lot that had been on my lap. I have some hilarious pictures to send home. I'm not sure if I'll have time this week but I'll try. IT was so funny. We were dying laughing. Luckily my skirt came clean. Currently there is a heap of wedding cake in a bowl in our fridge. Someone else's wedding cake. If we ever get given a cake again the elders have to take it home that's for sure. They of course thought this was hilarious. Which it was. Definitely one of the funniest things ever. We had to clean our car, our kitchen floor, our carpet, our counter and ourselves. IT was quite the ordeal. 

Well I hope you allhave a great week. I love you all so much! Choose the right! 
Sister White 

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